Two men were missing, Serapio the candymaker, and Antonio, who
played the cymbals in the Juchipila band. "Maybe they'll join us
further on," said Demetrio.
The return journey proved moody. Anastasio Montanez alone preserved his
equanimity, a kindly expression playing in his sleepy eyes and on his
bearded face. Pancracio's harsh, gorillalike profile retained its
repulsive immutability.
The soldiers had retreated; Demetrio began the search for the soldiers'
horses which had been hidden in the sierra.
Suddenly Quail, who had been walking ahead, shrieked. He had caught
sight of his companions swinging from the branches of a mesquite. There
could be no doubt of their identity; Serapio and Antonio they certainly
were. Anastasio Montanez prayed brokenly.
"Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom
come..."
"Amen," his men answered in low tones, their heads bowed, their hats
upon their breasts....
Then, hurriedly, they took the Juchipila canyon northward, without
halting to rest until nightfall.
Quail kept walking close to Anastasio unable to banish from his mind
the two who were hanged, their dislocated limp necks, their dangling
legs, their arms pendulous, and their bodies moving slowly in the wind.
On the morrow, Demetrio complained bitterly of his wound; he could no
longer ride on horseback. They were forced to carry him the rest of the
way on a makeshift stretcher of leaves and branches.
"He's bleeding frightfully," said Anastasio Montanez, tearing off one
of his shirt-sleeves and tying it tightly about Demetrio's thigh, a
little above the wound.
"That's good," said Venancio. "It'll keep him from bleeding and stop
the pain."
Venancio was a barber. In his native town, he pulled teeth and
fulfilled the office of medicine man. He was accorded an unimpeachable
authority because he had read The Wandering Jew and one or two other
books. They called him "Doctor"; and since he was conceited about his
knowledge, he employed very few words.
They took turns, carrying the stretcher in relays of four over the bare
stony mesa and up the steep passes.
At high noon, when the reflection of the sun on the calcareous soil
burned their shoulders and made the landscape dimly waver before their
eyes, the monotonous, rhythmical moan of the wounded rose in unison
with the ceaseless cry of the locusts. They stopped to rest at every
small hut they found hidden between the steep, jagged rocks.
"Thank God, a kind soul and tortillas full of beans and chili are never
lacking," Anastasio Montanez said with a triumphant belch.
The mountaineers would shake calloused hands with the travelers, saying:
"God's blessing on you! He will find a way to help you all, never fear.
We're going ourselves, starting tomorrow morning. We're dodging the
draft, with those damned Government people who've declared war to the
death on us, on all the poor. They come and steal our pigs, our
chickens and corn, they burn our homes and carry our women off, and if
they ever get hold of us they'll kill us like mad dogs, and we die
right there on the spot and that's the end of the story!"
At sunset, amid the flames dyeing the sky with vivid, variegated
colors, they descried a group of houses up in the heart of the blue
mountains. Demetrio ordered them to carry him there.
These proved to be a few wretched straw huts, dispersed all over the
river slopes, between rows of young sprouting corn and beans. They
lowered the stretcher and Demetrio, in a weak voice, asked for a glass
of water.
Groups of squalid Indians sat in the dark pits of the huts, men with
bony chests, disheveled, matted hair, and ruddy cheeks; behind them,
eyes shone up from floors of fresh reeds.
A child with a large belly and glossy dark skin came close to the
stretcher to inspect the wounded man. An old woman followed, and soon
all of them drew about Demetrio in a circle.
A girl sympathizing with him in his plight brought a jicara of bluish
water. With hands shaking, Demetrio took it up and drank greedily.
"Will you have some more?"
He raised his eyes and glanced at the girl, whose features were common
but whose voice had a note of kindness in it. Wiping his sweating brow
with the back of his palm and turning on one side, he gasped: "May God
reward you."
Then his whole body shook, making the leaves of the stretcher rustle.
Fever possessed him; he fainted.
"It's a damp night and that's terrible for the fever," said Remigia, an
old wrinkled barefooted woman, wearing a cloth rag for a blouse.
She invited them to move Demetrio into her hut.
Pancracio, Anastasio Montanez, and Quail lay down beside the stretcher
like faithful dogs, watchful of their master's wishes. The rest
scattered about in search of food.
Remigia offered them all she had, chili and tortillas.
"Imagine! I had eggs, chickens, even a goat and her kid, but those damn
soldiers wiped me out clean."
Then, making a trumpet of her hands, she drew near Anastasio and
murmured in his ear:
"Imagine, they even carried away Senora Nieves' little girl!"
V
Suddenly awakening, Quail opened his eyes and stood up.
"Montanez, did you hear? A shot, Montanez! Hey, Montanez, get up!"
He shook him vigorously until Montanez ceased snoring and in turn woke
up.
"What in the name of ... Now you're at it again, damn it. I tell you
there aren't ghosts any more," Anastasio muttered out of a half-sleep.
"I heard a shot, Montanez!"
"Go back to sleep, Quail, or I'll bust your nose."
"Hell, Anastasio I tell you it's no nightmare. I've forgotten those
fellows they hung, honest. It's a shot, I tell you. I heard it all
right."
"A shot, you say? All right, then, hand me my gun."
Anastasio Montanez rubbed his eyes, stretched out his arms and legs,
and stood up lazily.
They left the hut. The sky was solid with stars; the moon rose like a
sharp scythe. The confused rumor of women crying in fright resounded
from the various huts; the men who had been sleeping in the open, also
woke up and the rattle of arms echoed over the mountain.
"You cursed fool, you've maimed me for life."
A voice rang clearly through the darkness.
"Who goes there?"
The shout echoed from rock to rock, through mound and over hollow,
until it spent itself at the far, silent reaches of the night.
"Who goes there?" Anastasio repeated his challenge louder, pulling back
the lock of his Mauser.
"One of Demetrio's men," came the answer.
"It's Pancracio," Quail cried joyfully. Relieved, he rested the butt of
his rifle on the ground.
Pancracio appeared, holding a young man by the arms; the newcomer was
covered with dust from his felt hat to his coarse shoes. A fresh
bloodstain lay on his trousers close to the heel.
"Who's this tenderfoot?" Anastasio demanded.
"You know I'm on guard around here. Well, I hears a noise in the brush,
see, and I shouts, 'Who goes there?' and then this lad answers,
'Carranza! Carranza!' I don't know anyone by that name, and so I says,
'Carranza, hell!' and I just pumps a bit of lead into his hoof."
Smiling, Pancracio turned his beardless head around as if soliciting
applause.
Then the stranger spoke:
"Who's your commander?"
Proudly, Anastasio raised his head, went up to him and looked him in
the face. The stranger lowered his tone considerably.
"Well, I'm a revolutionist, too, you know. The Government drafted me
and I served as a private, but I managed to desert during the battle
the day before yesterday, and I've been walking about in search of you
all."
"So he's a Government soldier, eh?" A murmur of incredulity rose from
the men, interrupting the stranger.
"So that's what you are, eh? One of those damn half-breeds," said
Anastasio Montanez. "Why the hell didn't you pump your lead in his
brain, Pancracio?"
"What's he talking about, anyhow? I can't make head nor tail of it. He
says he wants to see Demetrio and that he's got plenty to say to him.
But that's all right: we've got plenty of time to do anything we damn
well please so long as you're in no hurry, that's all," said Pancracio,
loading his gun.
"What kind of beasts are you?" the prisoner cried. He could say no
more: Anastasio's fist, crashing down upon his face, sent his head
turning on his neck, covered with blood.
"Shoot the half-breed!"
"Hang him!"
"Burn him alive; he's a lousy Federal."
In great excitement, they yelled and shrieked and were about to fire at
the prisoner.
"Sssh! Shut up! I think Demetrio's talking now," Anastasio said,
striving to quiet them. Indeed, Demetrio, having ascertained the cause
of the turmoil, ordered them to bring the prisoner before him.
"It's positively infamous, senor; look," Luis Cervantes said, pointing
to the bloodstains on his trousers and to his bleeding face.
"All right, all right. But who in hell are you? That's what I want to
know," Demetrio said.
"My name is Luis Cervantes, sir. I'm a medical student and a
journalist. I wrote a piece in favor of the revolution, you see; as a
result, they persecuted me, caught me, and finally landed me in the
barracks."
His ensuing narrative was couched in terms of such detail and expressed
in terms so melodramatic that it drew guffaws of mirth from Pancracio
and Manteca.
"All I've tried to do is to make myself clear on this point. I want you
to be convinced that I am truly one of your coreligionists...."
"What's that? What did you say? Car ... what?" Demetrio asked, bringing
his ear close to Cervantes.
"Coreligionist, sir, that is to say, a person who possesses the same
religion, who is inspired by the same ideals, who defends and fights
for the same cause you are now fighting for."
Demetrio smiled:
"What are we fighting for? That's what I'd like to know."
In his disconcertment, Luis Cervantes could find no reply.
"Look at that mug, look at 'im! Why waste any time, Demetrio? Let's
shoot him," Pancracio urged impatiently.
Demetrio laid a hand on his hair which covered his ears, and stretching
himself out for a long time, seemed to be lost in thought. Having found
no solution, he said:
"Get out, all of you; it's aching again. Anastasio put out the candle.
Lock him up in the corral and let Pancracio and Manteca watch him.
Tomorrow, we'll see."